The Deadly Wait: How Emergency Department Boarding Harms Patients and Paralyzes Care
A large retrospective study of three English emergency departments reveals the severe consequences of “boarding,” where patients wait for an inpatient bed after being assessed. The analysis found that medical patients, who account for most admissions, also constitute the majority of boarding time. Each additional four hours of boarding was associated with an extra 8.6 hours of total hospital stay and an 8.4% increase in the odds of 30-day mortality for the boarded patient. Furthermore, this crowding creates a domino effect, delaying ambulance handovers and significantly increasing response times for urgent calls, harming the broader community seeking emergency care.
Why it might matter to you:
This study provides concrete, quantitative evidence linking emergency department crowding to worse patient outcomes, a critical issue in acute care. For clinical training, it underscores that system-level bottlenecks like boarding are not just administrative problems but direct threats to patient safety and mortality. Understanding this evidence is essential for advocating for hospital flow improvements and making informed decisions about patient disposition and resource allocation in crowded environments.
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